First graders fitter than expected

Research news - Childhood obesity is often attributed to a lack of exercise. So what about sports among elementary school students' A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) pursued this question and collected the results of fitness tests for first-year students over a period of one decade. Their study shows that students did not lose their strength. Speed or balance even increased over the time of ten years. One change was in the boys, whose endurance decreased compared to the girls of the same age. ,,Contrary to the mostly negative tone of previous studies, we were able to demonstrate that the motor performance of first-year students has not deteriorated overall over the past ten years," explained Filip Mess, Professor for Didactics in Sport and Health at TUM. Previous studies should therefore be called into question.